I had the pleasure this week of attending a Canadian Energy Executives’ Association (CEEA) annual conference in Banff, always an inspiring setting for any activity. When I was in the energy business many years ago (Norcen Energy Resources, originally the Northern and Central Gas Company), I often met with the Calgary energy establishment. In the mid-eighties they had the air of vintage explorers and promoters, swashbuckling oilmen of the old school, with a stylistic touch of Tex Ritter and John Wayne. In those times, the federal government of Pierre Trudeau was trying to take a large part of the profit from what was assumed to be a steeply rising industry. The price projections in the National Energy Program of 1981 foresaw a quick, straight rise in the oil price, a golden rocket to pay for all the wealth and welfare-distributive dreams of the Pierre Trudeau government. The agenda was a combination of Pierre Trudeau’s political raison d’être of fighting Quebec separatism with distribution of money in Quebec and smaller (Atlantic) provinces, and his Club of Rome, anti-growth and rather socialistic time-warp of the thirties and forties.
This policy made his regime a constant challenge: the indispensable man in saving Canada from the Quebec separatists was also an unregenerate social democrat who found the politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher incomprehensibly unattractive. He saved Canadian federalism by being out of step with the wider world, including economically renascent China.
Last week in Banff there was some reflection on the irony that where Pierre wanted to take the money from an industry that he regarded with fiscal greed, Justin Trudeau wants to shut down the same industry, which he regards as a threat to the environment and a menace to the inalienable rights of native people. Where Pierre Trudeau had begun his long incumbency as prime minister intending to fold what was then called the ministry of Indian Affairs, Justin has turned the country’s pockets inside-out to unaccountable native leaders, and has pitched to those who imply that all who have come to this country after the natives have been illegitimate occupiers. It is difficult for me to express the extent of my respect for the resilience, buoyant morale, and sophisticated strategic response of the country’s energy industry and of the new Alberta government to these challenges.
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See Also:
(1) Report slams Trudeau on climate change
(2) Canada is losing the battle in dealing with illegal migrants
(3) PM Justin Trudeau all talk and no substance
(4) Army didn’t miss extremist signal
(5) The Macron-Trudeau alliance won’t be enough to stop Trump’s G7 wrecking machine
